White Space (49 page)

The knife was already moving, and too late, Rima wondered if her mother understood. The blade flashed down, and then Anita was sawing at the rope tethering Rima’s right hand. At that, her heart tried to fail.
I’m left-handed. It knows that’s my weaker hand
. So she would have to be very quick. She watched the knife eating the rope; the tension around her wrist eased, and a second later, her hand was free.

A sudden, fierce urgency flared to snatch at her mother, made a grab,
do
something, and Rima had to work hard to muscle back the impulse to knot her fist in Anita’s hair.
Wait, be patient. Don’t spook her, because you won’t get another chance. Wait for it
.

As if sensing some danger, her mother rocked back on her heels. The muzzy look on her face sharpened a moment, and the knife she still clutched twitched, the point moving to hover over Rima’s throat.

“Careful of the knife.” Rima licked her lips. “You don’t want to cut yourself.”

For a shuddering moment, nothing happened. The bright spark that was the point of the knife ticked back and forth ever so slightly with each beat of Anita’s heart. Rima said nothing, held her breath. Then she heard the knife clatter to the rock, and Anita was leaning forward, practically falling on top of her—and Rima thought,
One chance
.

“Oh, my poor baby, come here,” Anita sighed, snaking her arms around Rima’s neck and shoulders. “Come to Momma, baby.”

“Oh, Mom.” Her voice broke as she carefully wound her arm around Anita’s thin shoulders. “I forgive you,” she whispered—and then she clamped down and felt for the center of her mother with all her might.

In the next instant, when Anita began to scream—when it was much too late—Rima understood: she had just made the worst and last mistake of her life.

Too late, Rima understood everything.

“NO, NO, NO
, no, no!” Bode swung his torch right and left, but there were no chinks in the rock, no breaks. The rock was as smooth as a black mirror; his reflection so perfect, it was like staring through a window to a moonless night. “This can’t be right!”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Eric said. The high scream of the scorpions swelled from the mouth of the tunnel. “If the other tunnel ended, how can this be a dead end, too?”

“Because this is where we’re supposed to end up.” Casey reached for the glassy rock, and his hand’s ghostly twin floated to meet him. “
This
is the way it wants us to go.”

“Kid, we’re not talking fog now. This is solid rock,” Bode said. He saw the margins of Casey’s reflection smudge and blur—and then the ruddy glimmer of a face suddenly seemed to ooze from Casey’s body to appear on the rock’s mirrored surface.

Holy smoke
. He knew the others couldn’t see this.
The kid—

“But it’s the
wrong
rock.” Emma’s expression was tight, intense. “
Look
at it. This is almost like obsidian, volcanic glass.”

“So
what
?” he grated, bunching his fists. His brain was yammering,
Get out, get out, get out!
Despite what he saw in the rock—something that should’ve reassured him they might still have a chance—Bode was more frightened now than he’d ever been in his life. His back prickled. If you spent enough time worming on your belly through black echoes, you got a sense when there was something coming for you out of the dark, and he could
feel
the scorpions swarming down the tunnel. Those things would rush through the archway in a broad black river, and he would drown in a writhing sea of pincers and stingers. They would slither into his mouth, swarm down his throat, eat him from the inside out, scrape his eyeballs from their sockets.
Got to get out, got to get out
. “What does that matter?”

“Glass isn’t an organized solid. Light doesn’t show itself until it reflects or bounces off something. That’s why you see yourself in a mirror but not necessarily in clear glass. But
look
at us.” When she moved her hand from side to side, its mirror image echoed but blurred and elongated into shimmering, smeary trails. “This isn’t really reflecting. It’s as if the reflection’s being … slowed down?”

So what?
His nails were slicing crescent divots from his palms.
Tell me something I can use!
Bode had to really work at not grabbing Emma by the shoulders and shaking her until her eyeballs jittered. “Yeah? How does that help us?”

“It’s like it … 
traps
the light.” Casey’s hand was still pressed to his glimmering double. “As if it’s coming back to us out of tar or something.”

“Emma,” Eric said, “what if
this
is the same kind of energy sink that’s in the Peculiars? Wasn’t that designed as a barrier, a way of containing energy? Look at the smears. Remember what Lizzie said? Her dad said the glass makes the thought-magic slow down.”

“What does that mean?” Bode could see now that when he turned his head, his reflection lagged behind, the margins blurring into streamers. “Is that good?”

“No. It means there’s something beyond this, inside, the way the Peculiars trapped energy. Anything that can trap energy can trap us.” Emma actually backed up a step. “I’m not touching this. We can’t go through here. There’s got to be another way.”

“You know there isn’t. Emma, please,
Rima’s
on the other side. I
feel
it.” Casey’s face glistened and more tears streamed down his cheeks. “We have to
help
her!”

“Well, whatever you’re going to do, do it now,” Bode said. The scorpions’ squalls were much closer, no longer only echoes but a shrill of sound as focused and insistent as a drill coring through the bone of his skull. “I’ll settle for anyplace those things aren’t.”

“We got to go for it, Emma,” Eric said.

“Eric,” she said, “it’s an
energy sink
. That means it can steal from me, from
us
. You want to wake up dead inside solid rock?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Eric said. “You have to get us through, Emma. It’s the only thing left.”

Well
, Bode thought,
not quite
. Emma looked pretty spooked. Even if she
could
do it, Bode still thought it would take her much more time than they had left. But he had the
gun. He had the can of gas, and their second jar besides. He had everything he needed, no more and no less.

In that moment, the shape of his future became clear. Shit, the writing really was on the damn wall now, wasn’t it?

“Get them through, Emma. You find Rima and that little girl, and then you guys clear out,” Bode said—and wheeled back the way they’d come.

“Bode!” Eric and Emma shouted. Bode saw Emma try to spurt after him, but Eric snagged her arms and held on tight. “Eric, no! Bode!” Emma cried. “Bode, stop!”

He did, but only at the bend and just for an instant. “Don’t drop them, Emma. Don’t let yourself get stuck. Get them out and get them clear, you hear?”

Then he rounded the corner and sprinted down the tunnel as the heavy pillowcase banged his thigh, as remorseless as a countdown.

HE LOOKED OVER
his shoulder only once, enough to satisfy himself that they weren’t following, and then he dug in, dashing down the tunnel, closing the gap. Ahead, he could hear the tidal wave of the scorpions as they came in a susurrous hiss, like the ebb and suck of waves dragging over the rubble of shattered seashells. When he thought he’d gone far enough, he swiftly untied the sack, took out both the jar and the can, and set them side by side on the rock.

Jar or can? There would be no second chance, so he had to guess right the first time. He settled on the jar; the can was thinner, and unless the glass simply melted, the shards ought to have enough punch behind them to slice through aluminum. Pulling the Glock from the small of his back, he squatted and butted the muzzle against the glass. A bullet alone wouldn’t get the job done; that only worked in movie-magic and books and television. What he needed was the muzzle flash.

Sweaty fingers gripping the Glock, he waited through
a long second and then another. Maybe ten seconds left, or maybe less, but a long time to wait alone, a lot of life to try to cram into too short a span: focusing on every breath, the hum of his blood, that steady thump of his heart; paying attention to the set of his body
—this
body—while knowing that each sensation was possibly the last he would ever feel.

Then, in that third second, a voice he knew and had been afraid was gone forever floated through his mind:
Proud of you, son
.

The relief he felt was so huge he could feel his throat ball and his eyes burn with the sudden prick of tears. “Thank you, Sarge.” He swallowed against watery salt. “I thought you would stay with Casey.”

In a moment. Right now, you need me
.

“I needed you before. You could’ve warned me. You had to know what would happen once I got into the barn.”

I’m a soldier, son, and a ghost—not a mind reader
.

“That’s not all you are, Sarge. I feel it. That’s right, isn’t it? You l-left me for C-Casey …” Faltering, he forced his trembling lips to cooperate. “But you must have some damn good reason. Please, Sarge, help them. Help Emma. You will, won’t you?”

If I can. I am as I have been written
.

“I don’t know what means.” But he thought he might. What if
his
life, everything he’d experienced, was in preparation for this moment? If
this
was why he’d been written: to help the others, give them a chance?
And where will I be if—when—I wake up?
If Lizzie was right, he would open his eyes, and there would be jungle and heat and bullets whizzing, the
black echoes waiting, and Chad, grousing about no smokes and lousy food. Perhaps he would have no memory of this, or the others, at all. A wash of sadness filled his chest because, of all the things he wanted to forget, these people weren’t among them. Theirs was a friendship and bond forged in battle, and he was afraid for them. He was afraid for the kid, Casey, most of all.

Something even worse behind that weird rock. I feel it. They got to protect the kid; Battle must know this
.

And would
he
find them again, somewhere else? Was there another Bode, an infinite number of Bodes, living their lives, making their mistakes, writing their own nightmares? Finding these people whose fates were woven with and into his?

Or maybe we’re each other’s salvation. This might be atonement, too, a way of making things right
.

“I’m sorry, Sarge.” He didn’t bother trying to hold back the tears now. What the hell; he was dead, no matter which way you sliced it. “I’m sorry I got hung up in the tunnel; I’m sorry I was late. You should’ve left. You should’ve gone, but you were there, waiting for me.” Bode’s voice broke. “I’m so sorry I got you killed.”

We were at war. My choices were mine. I wouldn’t leave you then, and I won’t leave you now
.

“Thank you.” Bode’s vision blurred. His cheeks were wet. The air was screaming now. Only a few seconds left. “It’s been an honor to serve with you.”

The honor’s mine. Go with God
. Then:
I think now would be a good time, Bode
.

Yes, he saw them coming, almost on him now: a seething, rippling river sweeping from the dark.

Into the black
, he thought, and squeezed the trigger.

BODE HAD LESS
than an instant and barely a moment, but that was enough for him to know that he was wrong. He was not going into the black at all.

Light bloomed, orange and hot, and took him.

“BODE, STOP!” BEYOND
the tunnel, Emma heard the swell of the scorpions, very close now. She tugged against Eric, who still had her arms in an iron grip. “Eric, please, we have to go after him. We can’t let him
do
this.”

“Go after him for what, Emma?” Eric gave her a little shake. “Think. Bode knows that this is the only way. We don’t have a choice and there’s no more
time
! Now,
come on
! Don’t make this be for noth—”

The room lit with a sudden, brilliant flash. The air exploded with a huge roar. The concussive burst, hot and heavy with burning gasoline, blasted through the mouth of the tunnel, followed a second later by a boiling pillar of oily smoke. She felt her throat closing, the muscles knotting against the acrid sting.

“Em-Emma,” Eric choked, and then he was pulling her down. Hacking, Casey had already dropped and lay gasping like a dying fish as tears streamed down his cheeks. The air near the floor was a little better, although she could barely see
through the chug of thick black smog. Emma’s head swirled, her shrieking lungs laboring to pull in breath enough to stay conscious.

“H-hurry,” Eric grunted. “Do it, Emma. Get us out!”

“C-Casey, take Eric’s hand,” she wheezed, and then she slammed her free hand against this strange black-mirror rock and thought,
Push
.

IT WAS DIFFERENT
this time, and much, much more difficult.

Her head ballooned; the galaxy pendant, Lizzie’s cynosure, heated against her chest. Their chain of colors spun itself to being, and then the familiar tingle of a
blink
began as the earth seemed to shift and yawn. Beneath her fingers, she felt not rock but that thin rime of ice frosting her window, the liquid swirl of the bathroom mirror, that featureless black membrane in Jasper’s basement, the thick clot of that murderous fog.

Push
. She narrowed her focus. At the same instant, she felt the heat from the galaxy pendant gather, build, surge, and then
rocket
from her mind, as bright and sizzling as a laser beam shot from the throat of an immense generator.
Push, damn it, push
, push.

They passed
into
the wall: not a plunge but a slow and torturous ooze, the bonds tethering the molecules of this strange, alien glass teasing and ripping. The black mirror—no, this
Peculiar
, thinned, as if the touch of her mind was a warm finger to frosted glass. Yet the way was not clear; the glass did not melt so much as give and grudgingly deform, the way a too-wet sponge dimpled.